Ghost Daughter
by phantommangagirl
Summary: Karen Manson is a normal girl, but everything changes after her fourteenth birthday. This version of the fic is closed; see Chapter 9 for details and explanation.
1. Prologue

Karen Manson is a normal girl; that is, up until her fourteenth birthday. Contains OC's. R&R no flames please!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom. I never have, I never will. Get over it.

PROLOGUE

_I never knew my father. My mom got pregnant with me when she was sixteen but ran off without telling him. So, growing up, all I knew about him was that his name was Danny Fenton._

_When I say growing up, I mean until my fourteenth birthday._

_Up until then, I had been a normal girl: good grades, close friends, pretty active social life. But then I turned fourteen._

_My name is Karen Lilith Manson, and this is my story._

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OK, first chapter up! It wasn't that great, but I promise that the rest of the fic will be better. R&R, please no flames!


	2. Birthday Morning

Karen Manson is a normal girl; that is, up until her fourteenth birthday. Contains OC's. R&R no flames please!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom. I never have, I never will. Get over it.

Chapter One: Birthday Morning

Birthdays had never really held much meaning to me. I enjoyed celebrating them, but I never really felt the magic that was supposed to come with them. But for some reason, I felt like my fourteenth birthday was different. It was exciting; it gave me a thrill, like something big was going to happen.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt it. The morning of my fourteenth birthday—April 18, just a couple of months before the end of eighth grade—my mom was extremely on edge. When I walked down the stairs to get breakfast, I saw her at the kitchen table muttering to herself.

"Uh…Mom?" I said.

She looked up at me, and for a moment I thought I saw panic in her eyes. Then she shook her head, and the look disappeared. She stood up, walked over to me, and gave me a hug. "Happy Birthday, honey," she said to me. She pulled away and smiled. I looked at her with a confused eye.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Of course I am why wouldn't I be? It's my daughter's birthday, after all," she replied, a little too quickly. I saw another look in her eyes: a mixture of nostalgia, pain, and guilt. I knew the look instantly.

"You were thinking about Danny, weren't you," I said, not saying it as a question. Mom's smile faded and she looked away from me. I shook my head. "Mom," I told her, "I'm fine with it. You can think about him all you like; I have no problem with it." I paused. A picture ran into my mind and I grimaced. "Unless you were thinking about the two of you…"

Mom laughed. "No, no, I wasn't thinking that. I was just…" She broke off and went over to the kitchen counter.

"Just what?" I asked.

"Just…remembering when Danny and I were fourteen." She gave off a dry chuckle. "Good times."

"Right." I smiled, remembering some things she had told me about her childhood. "Danny Fenton, Tucker Foley, and Sam Manson: the Motley Crew. The Three Musketeers. The Scooby Gang minus Scooby."

Mom laughed again, a good heart-felt laugh this time. "Sounds about right." There was silence for a moment. "So, you're graduating from eighth grade soon," she said tersely, changing the subject.

_Dammit, Karen, you shouldn't have brought up Danny, _I scolded myself, but I didn't say it out loud. Instead I said, "Yeah, can you believe it? Six months from now I'll be a high school freshman."

Mom made a fake cooing voice. "It seems like only yesterday that you were a teeny-weeny baby in my arms…"

I rolled my eyes. "Enough." We both laughed. "Seriously, though," I said, "I can't believe I'm already fourteen. I feel…" I paused, not sure if I could put it into words. "I feel like something big is going to happen. Like something will happen that will change my life."

Mom stopped smiling and gave me a look I couldn't read. "You mean high school?"

I thought about it. Was it high school? It _was_ coming up soon, and high school is always a time for change. The answer came to me.

"No," I answered. "Something else."

Mom looked away from me. I caught a glimpse of her face; it was filled with something I couldn't identify.

Later, I realized that the look on her face was grief.

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Yay, next chapter! This was a lot longer, I know. This whole thing was kind of me rushing and rambling (I'm typing this on a plane with a low battery), so forgive me if this chapter sucks. The real plot will begin soon, I promise! R&R no flames please!


	3. The Invisible Arm

Karen Manson is a normal girl; that is, up until her fourteenth birthday. Contains OC's. R&R no flames please!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom. I never have, I never will. Get over it.

Chapter Two: The Invisible Arm

At school, my best friends Sharon and Mimi showered me with happy birthdays and told me that they were sorry, but they had to leave early to go with their mother somewhere (they were twins). Of course, they were going to see me after school, just not during the day. I told them it was fine, don't worry about it.

Looking back, I'm glad they weren't at school that day.

The morning passed without incident. I got some happy birthdays here and there, but nothing fancy. I went through my first classes as usual: History, Math, Art, and P.E. At lunch I crammed for a Spanish test that I had forgotten about until someone in the locker room had mentioned it while we were changing for P.E. I was relieved that at least I had Spanish last period, but annoyed because I had Science and English right before that. Basically, nothing really unusual happened to me…in the morning.

When lunch was over, I grabbed my books and headed over to Science class. As usual, I sat in the desk with the easiest access to the pencil sharpener, because I liked to write a lot. I didn't get a chance to write much, though.

Ms. Burton, my Science teacher, kept yelling out random trivia questions on everything we had learned that quarter. ("What does electrical power times electrical potential equal?" "What are the four layers of the Earth?") She called on me a couple of times, and I managed to get the questions she asked me right. She continued on like this for a while; I started counting the milliseconds until she stopped.

After a while, I propped my head up with my arm, my elbow on the desk. I was closing my eyes when I suddenly had a strange feeling, like I was sinking. I opened my eyes—and saw my right arm going _through _the desk.

I screamed. I didn't mean to, but I screamed. The entire class, including Ms. Burton, stopped talking and stared at me. I quickly pulled out my arm and raised my head. _Oh, crap,_ I thought. _Come on, Karen, come on, think of an excuse QUICK!_ "I-I-I-I-I, um, uh…" I stammered, "I-I-I, uh…I think...I, uh…s-s-saw…s-s-something…of the…bug…variety."

Strangely enough, it worked. A couple of the 'Barbie' girls started to freak out, screaming bloody murder and running around the room. While everyone was trying to get them to sit and calm down, I managed to sneak out of the classroom.

As soon as I was out, I ran directly to the bathroom. I tried to grasp the door handle, but my arm just went right through it. I grew even more panicked. I opened the door with my left hand and ran inside. I checked to see that no one else was in there (no one was). I finally got a good look at my arm and gasped.

There was nothing there. There was nothing but empty space where my arm should have been. It was almost as if I didn't have an arm at all. I tried hitting it with my left hand, but it just went through.

I couldn't breathe. I didn't think about breathing. As I looked at the space where my arm used to be, only one thought ran through my head: _What's happening to me?_

I think that's when I fainted.

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I could hear people talking, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. I had a vague idea of where I was but I wasn't positive. Slowly, I opened my eyes. Sure enough, I was in the nurse's office. I had never been in there before; it smelled like rubbing alcohol and Clorox. I looked in the direction of where I heard talking and saw my mother and the nurse. I let out a groan and murmured, "Mom?"

They stopped talking immediately and came over to my side. Mom sat me up and gave me a hug. "Karen, honey," she whispered. The nurse watched over us, giving one of those fake concerned-teacher looks that you get sometimes. Mom turned toward the nurse. "Is she going to be all right?"

"Don't worry, Ms. Manson, she'll be fine," the nurse replied. She turned to me and said, "You had a little fainting spell is all. Everything should be OK. But your mom's taking you home so you can rest, OK?"

I was dizzy. Nodding took a great effort. "What about my arm?" I asked.

Both Mom and the nurse looked confused. "What about your arm?" they said in unison.

I looked at my right side, where the empty space had been—and there my arm was. It seemed as if it had never gone away, never been invisible or untouchable or anything. A perfectly good, normal, innocent right arm.

"Uh," I said, "I had a cramp in my right arm. Did I cut it when I fell? It feels like I did." The nurse shook her head no. She had believed my lie. It was clear, however, that Mom wasn't buying it, but she didn't want to say that in front of the nurse. She thanked her and we headed out.

On the car ride home, we drove in silence. Mom seemed like she wanted to talk to me about what happened, but didn't say anything. I didn't mind. It gave me time to contemplate my situation. _Should I tell Mom? Should I not tell her? Would she understand? Does she know something about it? If she did, would she say anything to me? _But I didn't say anything. We got home, and I went to my room. I flopped down on my bed and asked myself the same questions over and over again. In the end, I decided not to tell her.

Eventually, I fell asleep. The last thing to go through my mind was, _Well, at least I won't have to take that Spanish test._

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Next chapter up! Sorry it took me so long to update, but I've been super-busy. It may take me a while to write the next one too, because I start school next Monday. But here's the new one right now. Review, but please no flames!


	4. Through Forbidden Territory

Karen Manson is a normal girl; that is, up until her fourteenth birthday. Contains OC's. R&R no flames please!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom. I never have, I never will. Get over it.

Chapter Three: "Through" Forbidden Territory

Time passed. Eighth grade graduation came and went. Sharon and Mimi were going to Colorado to visit their aunt and uncle, so I wouldn't be able to hang out with them until July. Mom had to work, and often she would have to stay until around ten. I had summer reading to do, but I wound up finishing it within about a week and a half.

So that's how I ended up at home one day, alone in the house and bored out of my mind.

I had tried rereading _Life of Pi_ earlier in the day but had soon learned that it was not a book that can be reread. There was nothing on TV and there were no DVDs or videos that I felt like watching, so there I was, lying on the couch with nothing to do.

Nothing else unusual had happened to me since the incident with my arm. I had, however, started taking extra precautions to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. I now watched my feet as I walked to make sure I didn't go through the floor; I didn't sit too hard on chairs so that I wouldn't risk sliding through and fall ass-first onto the floor or through to the floor beneath; and I checked my hand every chance I got to be sure whatever I was holding didn't slide through my fingers. It annoyed me to no end to remember to do it, but then I remembered the blank space where my arm should have been. Upon remembering, I looked at my arm for what must have been the twenty-two trillionth time since that day in the nurse's office, just to make certain that it was still there (it was).

All these thoughts ran around in my head, but the fan suddenly went out, and no air circulated around the living room. I whined what would probably qualify as the loudest whine in the history of the planet.

I hate the heat, absolutely hate it. I have a complete intolerance for heat, and if I get too hot, I start to sweat like crazy and I can't breathe. I once actually fainted during a final exam because the air conditioning wasn't working (they let me retake the final later). And if the air wasn't going around the living room...I had to get out of there fast.

I went into the kitchen, but it was never very cool in there even without the air blowing out. I couldn't go into the bathroom or my bedroom; both were too cramped with all my stuff. I didn't know what to do.

Then the answer came to me: Mom's bedroom.

Mom's bedroom was always, _always_ strictly off-limits. Even when I was little and a friend came over to play, I would have to say to them, "We can't go into Mommy's room 'cause she needs her privacy." So normally, I would be skinned alive if I ever were to go in there, but A) it was the only room in the house with a ceiling fan, and B) Mom wasn't home, so she couldn't kick me out. Besides, this was an emergency situation. I decided to take my chances and went upstairs.

I walked up to the door that led to Mom's bedroom. As I reached out my hand to grab the door handle, I froze. _What if I get caught?_ I wondered. _What'll happen if she finds me in there?_ But the part of my brain desperate for cold overtook the logical part of my brain, and I took the door handle.

The door was locked. I realized this just as I remembered that every time Mom came into her bedroom, she always used some sort of weird-looking key to let herself in.

"Shit, Mom!" I yelled out loud. I banged my fist on the wall, then leaned against it and slid down onto the floor. I was going to die from the heat, I knew I was. I felt the sweat dripping from my forehead and neck onto my shirt. _What am I gonna do? _I screamed mentally. _WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?_

Then I had a thought. I looked at my right arm (still there) and thought, _This is an emergency situation. Living comes first, fear comes second. If my arm can pass through things...maybe I can too._

I stood up. I faced the door to Mom's bedroom and stared at it. I reached my arm out so that my palm was on the door. I closed my eyes. _Concentrate, _I told myself, suddenly feeling like I was in a bad kung-fu movie. _Just push...you'll go through..._

I felt my arm pushing forward. I opened my eyes and saw it passing through the door. I concentrated, and then started walking...

The next thing I knew, I was in Mom's bedroom.

I looked towards the door behind me, then at my body. I was there, intact. But I had passed through the door. I had gone _through_ the door. I was as frightened as I was amazed. Could I do it again?

I didn't care. My sights were on the ceiling fan. I went over towards it and turned it on. A second later, I felt the cold air circulating around the room. I placed myself underneath, and I felt like myself again. There. I was cool again. Mission accomplished.

But I was just so tired. I went over to the bed and flopped down on it. I sighed and lay there for a while. Eventually I turned my head and looked at my surroundings. _So _this _is Mom's bedroom,_ I thought. It was nice, nicer than mine, actually. The sheets of the bed were black and the comforter was a true red. The walls were painted some weird shade of purple; lavender, I think. There were a few candles on the dresser. She _had_ said once that she was a Goth in high school...

Then my eyes fell on the cabinet. It was a dark brown, placed on the floor next to the closet. I had seen it before: it used to be in the living room (locked, of course), but when I had asked about it, she had just turned away and said, "It's private. I have private things in there." She put it in her room the next day.

I was feeling daring enough, what with getting through the door and all. I got off the bed and walked towards it. I kneeled down and looked at it. The rational part of my brain screamed, _What the hell are you doing? Get out of here _NOW! But reason and I were not seeing eye to eye today. I made my arm go invisible and reached into the cabinet. I felt around for anything inside. Sure enough, something was in there that felt like a book. I grabbed hold of it and took my arm out. When my arm and the item came back into focus, I stared at what I was holding.

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Sorry I haven't updated in forever; I would have updated like a week ago, but the Documents thing wasn't working. I'm gonna try to keep the updates more consistent, I promise. Hope you like this chapter! Review, but please no flames!


	5. Mementos

Karen Manson is a normal girl; that is, up until her fourteenth birthday. Contains OC's. Rated for cursing and violence later on. R&R no flames please!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom. I never have, I never will. Get over it.

**Note:** _Italics_ Karen's thoughts

"In Quotes"talking/page headings

Chapter Four: Mementos

"A photo album?" I said out loud. It was large, with a teal cover and the words _Pictures of Memories _printed on it in magenta. "Why would Mom hide a photo album from me?" I considered putting it back in the cabinet, but curiosity got the better of me. I opened it.

I turned the page and came upon a large picture with three people standing in front of the camera making goofy faces. There was a big hall in the background and a banner reading "Congratulations!" At the top of the page Mom had written "My Bat Mitzvah Party, age 13." Underneath the picture it read, "The three of us fooling around with the photographer :)."

There were more pictures like that for the next few pages. She and her friends looked happy, all smiling and having a good time. The girl in all the pictures was clearly Mom, but I couldn't identify who the two guys were. One of them was black, wearing glasses and a red beret, and the other had black hair and piercing blue eyes. Another picture broke off from the series, though it was clearly still the Bat Mitzvah party. Someone had taken a picture of Mom and the boy with the black hair dancing together. They looked cute together, although my bet was that they both got really pissed off at whoever took the picture and tried to snatch the camera out of the person's hands. Underneath Mom had written "Me and Danny slow-dancing."

_Oh my God._

The boy with the black hair was Danny.

Danny Fenton.

MY FATHER.

_Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God,_ I thought in a panic. _It's Danny. It's Danny. Holy shit, it's DANNY! Oh God, oh God, oh God. OK, breathe, Karen, breathe. Oh God oh God oh God. Holy shit, what am I gonna do!_

I tried to breathe, but my lungs didn't seem to be working. _Calm down,_ I told myself, _calm down. It's all right, it'll be all right._ Eventually, I felt the lead weight being removed from my chest. I inhaled and exhaled deeply. I could breathe again. After I was sure I wouldn't have a second panic attack, I kept looking at the photo album. I flipped through the pages without much interest. I didn't care about family photos or middle school field trips. I wanted to find more pictures of Danny.

Eventually, I got lucky. One of the pages had a bunch of photos taped on it. The heading above it read "Danny's Parents' Lab." Mom, Danny, and Tucker (I could only assume the other guy in the photos was Tucker) were all laughing, looking like they were having a good time, same as the Bat Mitzvah party. One of the pictures had the three of them all in a line. Danny, Mom and Tucker were standing in a line, and Mom was standing between the two guys with her hands on both their shoulders. It was the only photo there of what Mom and Danny looked like standing still.

_Do I look like either one of them?_ I suddenly thought. I stared at the picture. I had black hair, but both of them did. I looked almost exactly like Mom did when she was my age: slim and with no chest to speak of. But I kept my hair longer, and I didn't have her eyes. Hers were small and lavender while mine were large and light blue. According to the photo, at least, I had gotten Danny's eyes. They were filled a kind of goofiness that would appeal to any girl looking for a fun, carefree boyfriend. I didn't have that, though. Just not a quality I possessed. I wondered if I had gotten anything else from him.

The next picture all by itself on the page. Danny was standing in front of a large circle that had a lot of wires poking out of it, holding some kind of weird cloth...thing. The heading read "Danny Phantom." _Wait, what?_ I turned the page.

The pictures on the next pages made no sense. They were all of some boy with white hair doing really random poses. Was he flying? I couldn't tell. _Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, what is this? Who is this boy?_

On the next page, Mom had taped a bunch of newspaper clippings. The largest one read "Ghost Kid Declared Public Ghost Enemy #1!" _"Ghost Kid"? No, this is impossible, ghosts don't exist. And even if they did, why does Mom have a zillion clippings? What the hell is going on here?_ The boy in the clippings was the boy in the pictures on the last page, he had to be. But why would Mom have a bunch of old newspaper articles? She wouldn't—

I froze. _What if...no, it couldn't be...could it?_

I turned back to the last few pictures. I took one of the pictures of the boy with the white hair. Then I took the picture of Mom, Danny, and Tucker standing in a line. I held the two pictures up side by side. _No, it can't be—_

"Karen?"

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Hi, sorry I didn't update sooner, but I've been super-busy because school just started and I have homework and...blah blah blah, you know the drill. But here it is! The next chapter! Review, but please no flames!


	6. Daughter of a Ghost

Karen Manson is a normal girl; that is, up until her fourteenth birthday. Contains OC's. Rated for cursing and some violence later on. R&R no flames please! (Constructive criticism is OK.)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom. I never have, I never will. Get over it.

Chapter Five: Daughter of a Ghost

"What are you doing in here?" Mom said in a harsh, clipped voice. She stood over me like she was a prison warden and I was a convict she had just caught trying to escape. I sat frozen on the floor, the photographs of Danny and the "Ghost Boy" still in my hands. I hadn't even heard her come in. "Why are you in here?" she asked again.

I stood up, holding the pictures. I tried to speak. "I...uh...the air conditioning blew out downstairs and..."

"You could have gone in your room," Mom said. Her expression didn't change.

"My room's too crowded," I replied.

"The AC went out downstairs and you had a fan in the living room," Mom replied.

"Why do you think I was in the living room in the first place?" I snapped suddenly. "The AC blew out in the house, then the fan went off in the living room, and you know I have absolutely no tolerance for heat. I know for a fact that your room has a ceiling fan, so I came in here to cool myself off before I died from heat stroke. Happy?" I sat down on her bed, having just exhausted myself from talking.

Mom stood silent. After a long pause she said, "OK, now the question becomes: how did you get in here? The door is locked. I have the only key."

_Shit_. This was the defining moment. I could leave now and let her kill me later...or I could fess up and tell her the truth.

I stood up, looked her square in the eye and said, "I went through it. I walked through your door. I was hot, and you have a ceiling fan, so I walked through the door into your bedroom. Then I saw the cabinet, and I made my arm go through that, and I took out your photo album." I felt courageous now. I continued to speak. "Now I have a question for you: why? Why can I do this? Do you know? I don't know why I can do this; do you?"

Mom didn't look me in the eye. Instead, she uncrossed her arms and sat down on the bed. Her expression softened. Without looking at me, she nodded and said, "Yes."

I sat down next to her. She looked very small, like a shriveled old lady. "Does it have to do with Danny and the Ghost Boy?" I showed her the pictures I had taken out. She looked at them for a long time. She turned her head towards me and sighed.

"Danny's parents were...professional ghost hunters," Mom said shakily. "They built all sort of gadgets and weapons to fight ghosts. Ectoplasmic guns, tracking devices, you name it, they had it. One day, when we were fourteen..." She paused, and then regained her composure. "When we were fourteen, they decided to build a portal."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "A what-now?"

"A portal," Mom said. "Most ghosts live in an alternate dimension called the Ghost Zone. It's basically a place where everything's green and goopy and there are an infinite number of doors that lead to a different ghost's lair. Danny's parents wanted to see the Ghost Zone, so they decided to make a portal so they could see it. They built it, but it didn't work."

"So...if the portal didn't work...how do you know what the 'Ghost Zone' looks like?" I asked. This was getting crazier by the minute.

"I was getting there," Mom said, annoyed. "When Danny told Tucker and me about the portal, we came over to his house to check it out." Her face lit up. "I found a jumpsuit in the corner that I knew would fit Danny. After some persuasion, I convinced him to..." She looked away.

"What?" I said. "What did you convince him to do?"

"I convinced him to go inside it."

I failed to see her point. "So?"

Mom looked back at me. "When he went inside, there was some kind of accident. He got the portal working—with him inside of it."

I felt my jaw drop. "Did he...die?"

"No," Mom said. "He became...well...part ghost."

"'Part ghost'? What does that even mean?"

"It means that at will, he could change form and go through walls, fly, turn invisible...whatever a standard ghost could do, he could do. He gained other powers as time went on: he could shoot ghost rays out of his hands, make a ghost shield...he could do a lot of stuff."

I stared at Mom. "So...you're saying I'm part ghost too?"

Mom looked at me sadly. "Yeah."

"And that's why I was able to walk through your door?"

"That's what I'm saying."

I shook my head in disbelief. "But...ghosts aren't real. They're just made-up creatures in horror stories."

Mom sighed. "Until Danny got ghost powers, that's what I thought too."

I sat in shock. This was too unreal. _Part _ghost_? That's ridiculous! Ghosts aren't real! Mom's just messing with you! _

But she was right. Deep down inside, I knew she was right.

I looked at the picture of Mom, Danny and Tucker, and then at the picture of the white-haired boy. "So...this was Danny?" I asked Mom. "Danny was the Ghost Boy?"

Mom said what I already knew. "Yes. Your dad was a ghost."

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Whew! I finally got it written! I'm sorry it's been so long, I know I haven't updated in, like, three weeks, but I've got school and my sister went to college and...yeah, it's been complicated. But yay, Karen's finally learned about Danny! I know this is rushed, but I tried. Review, but please no flames! (If you want to criticize, please make it constructive.)


	7. Slump Girl

Karen Manson is a normal girl…but everything changes on her fourteenth birthday. Contains OC's. Rated for cursing and violence later on. Read and review, constructive criticism is appreciated.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom. I never have, I never will. Get over it.

**Notes:** This is supposed to take place sometime in the future, so some current shows now are old shows in this story, which is why _Law and Order_ is on TV Land (that show is never going to end, is it?).

Chapter Six: Slump Girl

Later that night I tried to sleep, but I kept replaying the conversation with Mom in my head.

_Your dad was a ghost, your dad was a ghost, your dad was a ghost…_

I remembered all the ghost stories I had heard when I was little, with drowned women and blood-stained soldiers and wolves that remained invisible until they attacked. Were any of them true? Did ghosts really haunt old houses and seashores and forests and graveyards? I didn't know and I didn't care. The thought that there was ghostly blood—the blood of the ghosts in old tales—running through my veins, the thought that one day I could be the subject of one of those stories…what would that do to me?

_Your dad was a ghost…_

I was lying on the couch watching _Law and Order_ on TV Land. I wasn't paying attention to the dialogue, just watching Jerry Orbach smash a guy against an old-fashioned car and putting handcuffs on him. When they cut to the interrogation room, I filled my head with dialogue about what the cop and bad guy could be saying.

_**Jerry Orbach:**__Don't be cute with me. I know that you're the one who stole my Beanie Babies!_

_**Bad Guy:**__I don't know what you're talking about, officer! I didn't steal any Beanie Babies!_

_**Jerry Orbach:**__ Yeah, sure you didn't. Then how come I saw my Beanie Baby collection in your closet when we searched your house?_

_**Bad Guy:**__ The Beanies were a gift! I didn't know they were stolen!_

_**Jerry Orbach:**__ A gift. Really. From who?_

_**Bad Guy:**__ The ghost guy, Danny Phantom! He's still around! He's even got a kid out there somewhere!_

_**Jerry Orbach:**__ Well, you better hope that this 'Danny Phantom' has a Beanie Baby fetish. Otherwise, it's off to the big house for you, bub. Don't expect to—_

Click.

I turned around and saw Mom looking down at me with the remote in her hand. Her expression was a mixture of annoyance and concern. Given the fact that her free hand was clutching her elbow, I would say more the latter than the former.

"I was watching that," I said halfheartedly.

"Were you?" Mom asked. "Then what was the episode about?"

"Uh…" I racked my brain for the answer. Had I even paid attention to the teaser? "Some guy was murdered, and now they're investigating it?"

"The show's about homicide detectives," Mom said. "That happens in every episode. And it was an old woman who was murdered, not a guy."

"Oh," I said flatly, "right."

Mom put the remote down and motioned me to move over. I reluctantly bent my legs to my chest so she could sit. She looked at me with a worried eye. "What's wrong with you?" she asked me. "You've been acting like a zombie all week, not talking or anything."

I didn't try to deny it. It had been a week since Mom had told me about Danny, and about me, and I had been walking around like a zombie since. I hadn't respond to any of Sharon and Mimi's calls or e-mails, and if and when I talked my sentences were less than monosyllabic. It had been an effort that day just to tell Mom about _Law and Order_.

"I...just...have a lot on my mind," I replied. "High school...life stuff..."

"Ah, let me guess," Mom said, nodding her head. "You're in shock because I told you about Danny's powers."

"He didn't have powers, Mom, he was a ghost," I snapped, "you said that yourself. 'Your dad was a ghost.' Those were your exact words."

Mom sighed and reached to put her hand on my knee. "Look, honey, I know that was a lot to take in—"

I flinched away and glared at her. "Gee, ya think? I'm part ghost, Mother, part GHOST. That's a bit to take in when you're fourteen."

Mom nodded the 'I-don't-understand-but-I'll-pretend-I-do' nod that parents tend to give their children. "I'll bet," she said softly. "It was a lot for Danny to take in too. But you know what?" She gave me a solid, unwavering look. "He got past the shock. He accepted his powers. And I know you will too."

I rolled my eyes. "And how do you even know I have powers?"

"When was the last time you ever saw your bus driver go through a door made of solid wood?" When I didn't reply, she simply replied, "That's what I thought."

I sighed and softened my gaze. "I'm sorry," I said to Mom, "it just came as a bit of a shock. I'll...try to..."

"I know you will," Mom said. We sat in silence for a minute. Out of the blue, Mom started to chuckle. "You know, when Danny first got his powers, he _could not_ get a grip on them. About two weeks after he got them, he accidentally sank through the floor and fell straight into the girl's locker room."

For the first time all week, I let out a smile. "Seriously?"

"Oh yeah." She was laughing good laughs now. "The first time he tried to fly, he fell off of a roof and only survived because he landed on a giant mattress that just happened to be there."

I imagined the sight of ghostly Danny—the one I had seen in the clippings in Mom's photo album—falling on his ass, and I started to laugh too. We laughed for at least five straight minutes, Mom at remembering her good times, me for imagining the good times. After we stopped, I sat up and shifted over on the couch to give Mom more room. She moved over and smiled.

We sat in comfortable silence for a minute. Finally, I asked the question that had been looming over my head like a big thundercloud. "So..." I asked hesitatingly, "...after Danny got control over his powers...what did he do with them?"

Mom raised her eyebrows at me. "Are you sure you want me to tell you?"

"Why? Is it bad?"

"Sometimes, but generally no."

"Then tell me."

She paused. "How much do you want me to tell you?"

I was suddenly confused. "What do you mean?"

"Do you want the whole story or the Spark Notes version?"

I felt more energized than I had in a long time, even before my zombie week. I gave her a big, toothy grin. "Don't leave out a single detail."

Mom sighed, a half-smile on her face. "OK," she said, "you asked for it. Wait here." She stood up and started to walk out of the living room.

"Hey!" I called out to her. "Where are you going?"

"To the kitchen," came her reply.

"What for?"

"To get water and make popcorn."

"Why?"

I heard the refrigerator door open and close, and Mom came back with four big bottles of water. She placed the water on the coffee table and let out a dangerous grin.

"Because you're in for a long night."

(-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-) (-)

I speak from my friend's Fan Fiction bomb shelter, which protects against bombs, flames, and cockroaches.

Finally, at long last, I've updated _Ghost Daughter_. I had a completely different idea for how this chapter was going to go; I was originally going to have the chapter end in Karen's first flying experience (since in the original chapter idea she had always felt a compulsion to fly), but I realized that there was no way to write a middle that could work between Karen in a slump and flying for the first time. After my epiphany came, I wrote this resulting chapter, and now here it is. The original was actually a lot longer than this, so I split it up into two separate chapters. I'm still not sure if it was a wise decision, but here it is anyway. I'll post the next part as soon as I feel I have enough reviews (NO double reviews, because I'll know!).

Well, that's all for today! Part two of my after-chapter commentary will be in the next chapter, so bye until then!

-goes back to hiding from Fan Fiction cockroaches-


	8. TheSliiight Mishap

Karen Manson is a normal girl…but everything changes on her fourteenth birthday. Contains OC's and Season 3 spoilers. Rated for cursing and violence later on. Read and review, constructive criticism is appreciated.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Danny Phantom. I never have, I never will. Get over it.

**Notes:** This chapter, and probably the rest of the fic after it, contains a lot of spoilers from Season 3, which isn't scheduled to begin airing in the U.S. until June 2007 (why, Nickelodeon, why?!), so if you live in the U.S. and/or haven't seen any episodes from Season 3, don't read this, because it'll give away too much.

Chapter Seven: The...Sliiight Mishap  


Mom held true to her word: it was just after four in the afternoon when she started her story, and didn't stop talking until it was almost midnight, by which time we had gone through four bags of instant popcorn and five bottles of water.

She told me everything about 'Danny Phantom,' from the first time he stepped into the Fenton Portal, to the time Ember McLain put him under a love spell (I had teased her excessively at that story), to the second time he stepped into the Fenton Portal and received the white 'D' on his costume, to the incident with the Reality Gauntlet, to when the plant ghost Undergrowth put Mom under his control, and, finally, to when Danny and every single ghost in the Ghost Zone made the Earth intangible to save it from a giant asteroid made entirely of ectoranium. She accompanied her story with some visual aids, such as sketches of logo designs for the front of his jumpsuit, the Goth's Guide to Mythology that Danny had used to get Pandora's Box back from the Box Ghost, and a brochure of Washington, D.C., where there was a picture of the Danny Phantom Memorial Statue placed just outside of the Capital building.

I would sometimes ask questions or make some comments as Mom was telling me all about her adventures as Danny's sidekick, but mostly, I remained at rapt attention, silent in shock, awe, and admiration, for her, for all the citizens of Amity Park, and, most of all, for Danny. The fact that all those people, and especially him, went through what they did and still survived in one piece amazed me. About the middle of her tale, a thought came to the back of my mind, and had come full circle by the time she was finished: _I'm descended from greatness._

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I couldn't sleep that night, despite the fact that I was completely wiped out. The images of a lunch lady who could turn into a giant meat monster, a jerky older Danny with green skin, red eyes, and fire for hair, and a ghost with the horns of a ram and a body that resembled a blanket of stars kept pouring into my mind. All of the ghosts Mom had spoken of sounded like characters from a fairy tale: evil, mystical beings that would eventually be slain by the brave knight (Danny), who would then wed the beautiful princess (Mom, obviously). But instead of a big sword, a bigger shield, and strong armor, Danny had had various sort-of-natural powers to defeat the evil enemies: the Ghost Ray, the Ghostly Wail, freezing powers...

_Could I do any of that?_ I thought._ Could I face that kind of enemy and just be able to defeat it with a flick of my wrist or a really strong glare? I don't even know if I have any 'ghost powers.' Even if I did, I—_

Suddenly, I remembered my disappearing arm all those months ago, and the week before, when I had gone through Mom's bedroom door just by thinking about it. Was that a ghost power? Mom had said something about Danny doing that—she had called it intangibility. My heart started pounding in excitement. _I have a ghost power!_ I wanted to scream in delight, but didn't in fear of waking up Mom. _Hmm..._ I wondered; _what else can I do?_ I mulled over what Mom had called Danny's "basic powers": flight, intangibility, and invisibility. She had said that in the beginning, he could only do that stuff when he changed into his ghostly form. _Well,_ I reasoned, _if Danny could find his powers when he was in ghost form, maybe I need to get into ghost form to find my own._

I sat up in my bed, wide awake now. I turned on the light on my bedside table and got up. _I'll need a costume,_ I decided, and I went over to my closet. It only took me a few seconds to find the white turtleneck, the fitted black sweatpants with a white stripe down each leg, and the old pair of combat boots (which I had borrowed from Mom a few years back and never returned) that I was looking for.

I changed out of my pajamas and slipped on the shirt, pants, and boots, which I laced over the bottoms of my pants. I walked over to the full length mirror that was built into my closet door and stared at my reflection. _Not bad,_ I thought. I took my layered black hair out of its ponytail, let it fall to the middle of my chest, and tousled it around a little. _Not bad at all._

I gazed at myself again. If I was right, and I was able to change, then my shirt and the stripes down my pants would turn black, my hair, pants, and boots would all turn white, and my light blue eyes would turn a brilliant green. If I was wrong, at least the combo made a cute outfit if I took the pants out of the boots.

I got into a fighting stance, closed my eyes, and willed myself, _Change!_ I looked in the mirror to see if anything had happened. No dice. _OK,_ I thought, _let's try this again. One, two, three, change! _Nothing felt different._ Change!_ I thought. _Change! Change! You can do it, girl, change!_

I don't know how long I kept it up: it was probably only five minutes, but it felt like an hour. I sat down on my bed in indignation. "Ugh," I muttered under my breath, "why can't I do it?" Then I thought of Mom's story just a few hours before. Didn't she say that Danny had a battle cry? I stood up again. _No harm in trying it,_ I convinced myself, and I shouted into the air, "I'm going ghost!"

I heard something like a flash coming from below me. I looked down and saw a black ring forming around my waist. Before I could react, the ring split in two and started to move. One went up, going above my head, and the other went down, vanishing into the floor. It finished as quickly as it had started. I stood in shock for a minute, then smiled. "I did it!" I cried, "I really did it! I—WAAH!!" I looked into the mirror and let out a sharp, loud scream of surprise.

My hair, pants and boots had turned a puke green, and my shirt and the pant stripes had turned an almost neon blue. And though I could see perfectly fine, the irises of my eyes had turned white, and the should-have-been whites had turned pitch black.

_Change back change back change back change back change back!_ I thought in a panic. I focused on changing back to normal as hard as I could, but when I checked in the mirror I still looked like a Picasso-Van Gogh crossbreed. _Shit!_

"Karen?" I heard Mom say outside my door. _Double shit!_ "Karen, are you alright in there?"

"I'm fine!" I replied, a little too quickly. "I'm fine, fine, perfectly fine, relax, just go back to sleep, I'm sorry I woke you up." I moved to lock my door as I was talking, but the doorknob turned before I could reach it.

"Karen," Mom said, more annoyed this time, "Karen, what is going--" She stared at me in my botched up change mode. She stood in silence for a moment, taking in my appearance. "Uh..." she said after a minute.

"Look," I said quickly, "I have a perfectly legitimate explanation for...this. You see, I was thinking about Danny, and..."

"You tried to see if you could change into ghostly form," Mom finished my sentence for me. I nodded meekly. We stood in silence for a minute; then, I heard a muffled chuckle.

I glared at Mom. "No..." I said as the chuckles increased. "Don't you dare!" Mom burst out into hysterical laughter. She was laughing so hard that she had to grip onto my dresser to keep from falling on the floor.

"It isn't funny!" I screamed, but she didn't reply for her laughing so hard. "Be nice to your daughter!" I glared for a second, then turned my head and looked in the mirror. I looked at my grass-green hair and my zebra-like eyes. "I..." I started to say, "I guess it is a bit absurd, isn't it?" I was starting to chuckle in spite of myself. "I mean, look at me!" I was trying not to full-on laugh but wasn't succeeding. "I look ridiculous!" That was when I lost it. I burst out laughing, staring at my messed-up effort to go ghost. "Ridiculous!" I tried to say, but I couldn't get the words out. After what seemed an eternity, Mom and I stopped laughing. "OK!" I said, "time to become me again!"

It only took a second to change back to normal. The black ring sprouted up again, and, just like before, it split in half and went in separate directions. This time, though, when I looked in the mirror my reflection was normal again. I let out a sigh of relief, closed the closet door, went over to my bed, and flopped down on it.

Mom walked toward me and stood over my exhausted form. "Move over," she commanded, and I scooted over so she could sit next to me. As soon as she sat down, she said to me, "I have a proposition for you."

I looked over at the clock. "Mom, it's one-thirty in the morning, how about making the proposition tomorrow?"

"Hear me out."

I sighed. "Fine, what's the proposition?"

"I want to train you."

"Say what?"

Mom's eyes become focused on me. "You want to get ghost powers, right?" she asked, obviously as a rhetorical question.

"Uh..." I said hesitatingly, "right?"

"And you want to not look like a bad painting every time you try to change form."

"Obviously."

"So, you'll need someone to train you," Mom pressed on, "someone who knows the process of gaining control over powers that are hard to control."

"You're fully human!"

"Well, I was around Danny long enough to know about this stuff, wasn't I?" She continued when I didn't reply. "I'm the perfect person to train you. I know what powers you may get, I know what your potential may be..."

"You don't know anything about my potential!" I shouted, "I'm not one of Danny's clones, you know!"

"Yeah, but I have an idea of what you'll be able to do, and I can help you with that! Don't you see?"

"Not really," I replied truthfully.

Mom sighed. "Karen, I want to train you in whatever ghost powers you may get so that you won't lose control someday and really hurt someone."

I stared at her. "You're not going to shut up until I accept, are you?"

"Nope."

I let out an exasperated groan. "Fine, I'll let you train me," I said, "but I won't have you telling me what powers I'm going to get, because they may not be the same as the ones Danny had."

Mom smiled. "Deal." She kissed me on the forehead and stood up. "Good night, honey."

"Good night," I replied, pulling the covers over me and turning off my bedside light.

As Mom walked out of the room, she turned to me and said, "Get some rest. You're going to need it." She closed the door before I could reply.

I sat in bed for a minute. _"You're going to need it?"_ I turned Mom's words over in my head. _Good God, what have I gotten myself into?_

* * *

After-Chapter Commentary, Part Two! 

So yes, here is Chapter Seven, or Chapter Eight, or part two of Chapter Six/Seven, whatever you want to call it. I originally started out writing this chapter and the last one together, but I felt like there was too much going on in one chapter and that the two concepts of sluggish Karen and trying-to-change Karen didn't really connect. And in all honesty, the second part (aka this chapter) wasn't finished when I updated the first, so I had a chance to complete it. As I stated before, it may not have been a wise choice, but oh well.

This whole chapter came out completely differently from what I was going to write. Originally, Karen was going to master the changing part right away and look slightly cooler than Danny did (I'll describe her ghostly form in the next chapter). The idea of the whole blue-and-green mix-up didn't occur to me until I was writing my first draft on paper, when Karen was saying that her eyes should change from blue to green. As I was writing that bit, I thought, _What if she completely messed up the outfit?_ Such was the birth of Karen's little changing mishap, and of Sam offering to train Karen (which also didn't occur to me until my rough draft).

I apologize to you all for failing to update all this time, but as I stated in the last chapter, I was stuck on one idea and it was only recently that I realized it couldn't work. On the bright side, thanks to all those long months of brainstorming and confusion, I now have various ideas plotted out for the rest of the fic. I have basically the entire epilogue written in my head (NO, I'm not saying anything about it), and I've got other tidbits for chapters to come.

By the way, I have received two reviews on Chapter Six, and one of them was me pretending to be a reviewer to see if the system was working. I'm not sure whether it's that my story isn't worth reviewing, or if people just don't like to review anymore, but either way this fic has very few reviews. I want reviews. Therefore, I have a new policy (or possibly a form of blackmail...): if I don't get reviews for a chapter (positive or otherwise), I will withhold future chapters. I made an exception this time, but next time, no reviews, no updates. Just wanted to let you all know.

Wow, this bit is really long, I'll stop talking now. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and review!

-climbs back into the Fan Fiction bomb shelter, where she is still camped out-


	9. Chapter 9

***FROM THE AUTHOR TO YOU, MY LOYAL READERS WHO HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE STORY**

As you may have noticed, it's been nearly two years since I've updated _Ghost Daughter_. Believe me, I am more aware of this than anyone. The basic problem was that I got stuck on a chapter, then a lot of conflicting ideas for other related fics popped into my head, and I had plans for other chapters that had to be delayed; yada yada yada, blah blah blah, on and on and on, etc. etc. etc. and so on and so forth.

Therefore, I have made the decision—and please don't hate me—to discontinue this version of _Ghost Daughter_. I simply got completely stuck, and then there was no way to progress with the format I had written it. Honestly, the more I look at it now, the less and less satisfied I am with it, mostly due to some inconsistencies and grammatical errors. (Also, parts of Karen's ghost outfit were based on clothes I had before losing a lot of weight, so I didn't really want to go there.) As much as I love this story, I have to discontinue this version.

Yes, I said _THIS_ version. I am not going to abandon this story. In fact, I am going to do just the opposite.

I decided a few months ago to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month): write a novel, 50,000 words or more, in 30 days (aka the month of November). I had a bunch of ideas in mind, but none of them were good enough, and the ones that _were_ good enough weren't well-formed enough to do anything with them. Then, just two days ago, I found a notebook in which I had written rough drafts of a future chapter of _Ghost Daughter_. That was when I realized: this was it. The answer to all of my problems—NaNoWriMo, my struggle with _Ghost Daughter_—had been sitting right in front of me the whole time.

During the month of November, I am going to be doing an extreme makeover of _Ghost Daughter_.

The story is mostly going to be focused on Karen, of course, and it will still keep her POV in the first person. However, I am going to be adding flashbacks and POV's from other main characters. We will get to see how Sam got pregnant (no, it's not disgusting or violent, don't get that into your heads), see the aftereffects of her leaving, and see Karen's story from other people in her life. It will be an examination of Karen's story through both her eyes and the eyes of others. (Hers, though, will be the only POV told in the first person; everyone else's POV will be told in the third person because I wanted to keep that element of immediacy and personal experience on her part.)

Obviously, it will have to go through some editing: some stuff will be cut out, other stuff will be added in its place, and then of course the expansion and flashbacks and jumping through time, blah blah blah. Some of your favorite parts may be cut; however, I don't know and don't want to know which parts you want me to keep, otherwise it might influence me in one direction and ruin my objectivity on the matter—or what objectivity can be retained from reworking your own story. But the essence of the story, once I am done, will still be there. Even if it isn't, a new essence might give it some depth, and hopefully a nicer one.

This will not go through right away: I have to work on it through the month of November, because that's how NaNoWriMo works and I would prefer to have some time to work on it anyway. What I can promise you is that once I am done editing it, it will be posted up on this website as a new story; most likely, I'll be publishing it _Ghost Daughter Redux_ for differentiation's sake, but please think of it as _Ghost Daughter_. If all goes well, this should be sometime between mid-December and early January.

This is not an empty promise; I have already nearly completed the prologue. I actually shouldn't be typing this notice because I need to work, but I felt that, with new people watching this story, it had to be this way. Please don't hate me for this. This is something I need to do for the sake of the story and—frankly—so that I won't feel crazy and guilt-ridden anymore. If this whole concept goes against the rules for NaNoWriMo, I couldn't care less because I'm doing it anyway.

I very much hope that you support me on this matter. If all goes well, it will be a better story for it. Thank you so much for being here, and for adding this story to your favorites, and for watching this story, and for inspiring me to work on this. I promise that this will be a much better story when this is over; or even if it isn't, at least it will be something new and exciting. Thank you all so much. See you in December/January!


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